Scotch Affair
by Lady Heliotrope
Summary: John was taken aback, and was slightly embarrassed at the sight of Sherlock in a kilt. Prompt from LJ. Silly. Mycroft has an appearance.


**Gigue in B Major  
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It always amazed John what Sherlock got into his head to do, even if his friend's actions typically followed logic. Albeit, perhaps that was what surprised John the most; Sherlock was logical _to the letter_, but his adherence to logic was such that he had no qualms whatsoever in doing the most _impossible _things.

Things that included acquiring and wearing the marching costume of a pipe major.

John was taken aback, and was slightly embarrassed at the sight of Sherlock in a kilt.

"Sherlock, what are you doing?"

This question clearly did not warrant an explanation; Sherlock profoundly walked past with great, magnificent strides, oblivious to John's _feelings, _hefting the weight of the Great Highland Bagpipes from one arm to the other.

"Hullo, John," was all he said, collapsing on his couch and depositing (with great disrespect) the instrument on the table.

John was perplexed. "Hullo yourself. _What _on earth are you wearing?"

"I was at a funeral."

"You're not in the armed forces. Why the uniform?"

"Who says I'm _not_? Anyway, it was something for Mycroft."

John shook his head, realizing that this was as elaborate an explanation as he was going to get.

"I don't know that Mycroft would insist on a _kilt _get-up, for Chris'sakes," he muttered, turning back to his laptop to pay attention to his mail again.

"Don't you?"

Sherlock ripped off the garment, to John's sharp intake of breath and a scolding that burned the tip of his tongue, but thankfully was wearing underpants. He also was staring at John, as if expecting an answer to his question.

Bemused and a little perturbed, John quickly shook his head. "No, I don't, and I don't _want _to know, Sherlock."

"Mycroft has a-" Sherlock began to say, presuming that John was curious, but this was not the case, so John quickly interrupted.

"-Can you actually play that thing?" he asked, gesturing to the pipes on the table.

"Yes," replied Sherlock, "badly. I picked it up this morning. But you're-"

"-Prove it!" said John, determined not to let Sherlock change the subject back to kilts and Mycroft.

They met each others' eyes, gauging each other, and Sherlock yielded, the temptation to prove a point stronger than that of dishing out some nasty information about his brother.

"Fine," he said, mock-pouting, and there, in half a military dress uniform, he sat up straight on the edge of the couch and began to play the bagpipes.

* * *

><p>Earlier, Mycroft was standing in the middle of a cemetery. Anthea's great-uncle, a founding member of the Diogenes Club, had passed away. Normally he wouldn't be bothered to actually be present at such a thing as a funeral. He found them tedious, and usually he would say that he'd be out of the country the day of and send an enormous bouquet instead. But this was Anthea's relative, and even though she knew he lied - a <em>lot <em>- he liked to pretend that he respected her more than other people.

_Pretend _because no matter how capable she was with her fingers - in many ways - he had virtually no respect for anyone on the face of the earth, for everyone was human, and humans were inherently not respectable. Especially Joseph Burnwether, who'd been a very sly, very eccentric old dog. Mycroft was no more fond of him than he was of anyone else in the British parliament, but he was more suspicious of Burnwether than most. Hence why Mycroft had offered, so many years ago, to give him a substantial investment opportunity as the Diogenes Club - tie the man down somewhere he could see him.

But now the man was really dead, and Mycroft, while suspicious of the shrewd Anthea who had been her great-uncle's favorite, knew that another quiet threat to the sanctity of the government was gone. Now all that was left to carry out the will of the dead were a few sharp estate lawyers that could, with ease and adequate financial resources, be shooed away back into whatever dark corners from which they emerged.

And that would be that, Mycroft thought, swinging his umbrella with one brief sweep of celebration.

Mycroft didn't usually attend funerals, but he'd have not missed this one for the world. He didn't even mind that he had to wear a kilt, as all the invitations had requested the men do to honor Burnwether's firm attachment to his Celtic heritage. After all, the women were similarly asked to wear abonye dress, and moreover, it was far from an outlandish request, and the family intended to honor it, Anthea had divulged. And there she was, some distance away, sniffing away at a handkerchief in the front row with a velvet bodice, a tartan sash, and Ghillie brogues, her cell phone (Mycroft knew) hiding down her shirt, between her breasts.

As poems by Robert Burns began to be read aloud by an actor on stage, Mycroft primly dusted the immaculate tartan apron of the garment and did his best to swallow a yawn.

He heard someone approaching across the lawn towards him, where he stood near the back of the gathering, and he turned just enough to recognize his brother, Sherlock.

"Hullo, Mycroft," whispered Sherlock, holding a cup of pink _something _that might have been lemonade but might _also _have been something else.

"What are you doing here?" asked Mycroft in a hissing whisper, though he was half afraid of the answer.

"You said you wanted an update on the Faenrith case," said Sherlock, as if it were obvious.

"Yes, but now is _hardly _appropriate timing."

A pause.

"Since when do you actually _bother_ with giving me the updates I request, dear brother?"

"Since Morton Selnick had a speaking engagement at a funeral you're attending," the consulting detective replied, blatantly putting fieldglasses to his eyes and looking at the actor reading the poems.

Mycroft summoned patience and smiled condescendingly. "You never _stop_, do you, brother?"

"Why?" Sherlock didn't even look at him, his gaze still trained upon the stage. "Does it matter?"

"To the rest of the world, Sherlock, yes, little things like tact and appropriateness _do _matter."

Not that they mattered to Mycroft, not really; it just made things so _easy _for him when people conformed to social norms and niceties. It made them so _manageable_. Unfortunately, Sherlock was a Holmes, and therefore could not be _managed_. At least, not easily.

"Oh! Damn." Sherlock put his glasses away and tugged at his lapels; the dress-coat and kilt he was wearing were rather too large for him, and they looked uncomfortably familiar. Mycroft, with some horror, realized that his brother had been in his closet recently.

Mycroft had a few dress kilts, in varying sizes, because they did come in handy sometimes, for attending the Highland games and the National Dances and things. Besides, once he'd had them made, why dispose of them? Custom did not come inexpensive, and his great fear was that he'd gain the weight back despite the surgery. He kept all his old clothes.

But that didn't mean that Sherlock had a right to them.

"Sherlock?"

"Save your scolding, Mycroft." His brother was pressing some documents into his hands and, at the same time, keeping eyes trained on the speaker on stage. "That man is a robber and a kidnapper."

"Do you have a warrant? Or even proof?"

These were fruitless questions, of course, though responsible.

"Do I _need _proof?" Sherlock bit back.

Of course that question didn't deserve an answer, so Mycroft turned his head as if he'd not heard.

"I'm going," said Sherlock, and suited the action to the words, lazing towards the stage as Selnick descended with polite applause.

As he watched his brother accost the suspect and forcefully draw the other man into the shadows of the nearby willow trees, Mycroft couldn't help but note how dashing Sherlock looked in red tartan.

Or how quaint he looked with the bagpipes strapped to his shoulder. _Those _weren't from Mycroft's closet.

* * *

><p>Later, Sherlock received a text.<p>

_Keep_ _it._

_-MH_

Sherlock shrugged; he'd not been meaning to return the get-up anyway. Too much of a bother. If Mycroft wanted it back, well, Mycroft knew where to look.

John was in the process of tidying things up, a half-hearted and mostly useless effort. His hands lingered on the red tartan.

"Could I...Sherlock, do you think I might..."

Sherlock glared at John for being uninterestingly fascinated with a piece of fabric.

"What? You want to try it on? Be my guest. Just don't be a nuisance about it."

With this blessing, John turned a little red, saying, "Erm, thank you, I guess," before going to the bathroom.

A few minutes later, he heard a warble from behind a closed door. "Sherlock was there...a hat or sash or something?"

"Lost it."

"But you didn't lose the bagpipes," John said, emerging in the kilt (more impressive than the accompanying rumpled oatmeal sweater) with an indescribable look on his face. He was delighting in dress-up too much, Sherlock thought, but whatever. He got a secret exhilaration from it, too.

John approached him. "How do I look?"

Sherlock replied flatly, otherwise engaged, "You look like John in a kilt."

"_Thanks_," John replied with overemphasis, turning around to get a glance of himself in the wall-mirror. "Do the pleats go in the front or the back?"

"Back," said Sherlock.

The two of them caught each others' glance, and both laughed, a little awkwardly.

Sherlock's phone beeped.

_Actually, I want it back. With John in it. Ho ho._

_-MH_

"What's that?" asked John, too interested at the most inept times.

"Nothing," Sherlock said with a grimace, wondering where the newest cameras had been installed. He'd uprooted two in the past month, and was getting rather sick of the intrusions. "Just my brother."

* * *

><p>"So... something with kilts please ^_^ I just want to seeread about everyone wearing kilts. Not even kilt!porn. Just... wearing kilts. I can't even think of plausible reason. I don't even care about reason. I just want everyone in kilts XD Even Mycroft! No... _especially_ Mycroft. Dem legs XD"

Prompt from LJ on Sherlockbbc_fic by Anonymous on Prompting Part XXVI.


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